Finally, an entry that isn't punditry, unless you consider it punditry of my own life, in which case.....I don't know if that's really something that's possible....?

So I thought I'd write this entry yesterday, and I didnt. That's because Jack and I got into a massive row,( and for some reason, anyway, I was crying-at-commercials level of hormonal, which doesn't make sense since my period is all but over. ). The Reader's Digest version is that he, for some wacko reason I have yet to determine, doesn't express his feelings well and is not very romantic, so I end up feeling like a Friend With Benefits, which is NOT what I signed on for. I don't wanna marry the guy, so I'm not looking for moon-in-the-sky-and-you romance, but a "you look pretty" and "I like you" every once in awhile wouldn't hurt. The less I get it, the more disappointed I am, and the more disappointed I am, the further he pulls away into Safe Zone. (We were at least able to establish that.). And thus the cycle continues.

He does indeed like me, wants to be with me, ( and, for the record, ISN'T in this as a FWB deal), but doesn't understand what I mean by "Jack, I feel like you forget I'm girl sometimes" and "If you're thinking it, figure out a way to express it". We both are very different in this way, and nobody's bad here, but it makes me unhappy, and as he says, "I don't want to make you unhappy. I care about you, but I don't know how to fix it. " ( My answer: "Why don't you take what you would like done to you and give me some of that?"). I think we are both feeling that if it's this much of a struggle at this point, it might be better off left. KWIM???

So that was sad, and I knew he felt like crap, and I then felt like crap for making him feel like crap. I didn't know what was going to happen, but personally, after THAT fun conversation I felt like this thing had a shelf-life of about two weeks left in it if nothing changed. I knew we'd try to remain friends-- we do like each other too much for that to not be an option, and there's no hard feelings here-- it was just....UGH.

Sigh*....well, it doesn't matter now, because we split up. It wasn't ugly at all, and he was very sad, and I was very sad. It was just....sad.

Nobody's the bad guy, like I said. I knew it probably wasn't going to end up in a *forever* match, as I do love him, care about him, and have great affection for him, but I'm not IN LOVE with him. The longer I was with him, the more attached I became and loved him more, but it would have just been harder down the line to leave that, and although I was sorta trying to see how things were going to develop, see if MORE would have come into play later..... but well, we were already sort of not jiving for some reason. It wasn't tragic and awful, it just clearly wasn't working in a way that made us both feel like things were working right. We got along great, we enjoyed each other's company, and so on; as he said to me tonight, "You're so smart and beautiful -- and I wish I could have said it more-- and funny and , and I really really like you, and....I care so much about you and -you sell yourself short!-- you're so great and special. A good person, trying hard to be good, and....that isn't it, you know that....."........what was it, was that, it just, well.....wasn't synching up.

It's okay, I guess. I'm really sad. I miss him. We're going to remain friends and be in touch when a sufficient amount of time passes, and that will be nice.

Another *sigh*.

It kind of sucks, being almost 40 and knowing I want to settle down and have a family, and get married and all that, meet my partner, and being ready for being serious, and meeting great men, but then discovering they aren't really candidates for that. I really hope John Cusack isn't secretly gay and finds me soon.


Beyond that, I'm totally preoccupied with bills and money, and shit, and that isn't very interesting to write about.

I'm so broke it's not funny. I'm so tired of looking at the calendar for all my deadlines on bills and just laughing because there isn't any money. And I'm exhausted, my feet hurt, and all for $8 an hour. I do LIKE my job, and my coworkers, for once, some people in CA are smart enough and bitter enough to be as sarcastic as me, instead of painting it up like a smiley face and saying "NOW, don't be negative!! No negative energy!!" like every other goddamned idiot who lives in this state does.

At least there's that; the management KNOWS we're understaffed, is quite angry with upper management about it, but doesn't hold employees to ridiculous standards that clearly can't be met. ( They're also quite funny and sarcastic and smart. It doesn't make up for the lack of pay, but it makes my days amusing, at least). For example, my boss Mal, and I, had this exchange:

Me: MAL! I've been here 6 hours running around like a chicken with my head cut off and the same stack of books is still here waiting to be put away that was here at 9am! I feel like I've gotten nothing accomplished!
Mal: Welcome to Big Bookseller Burbank! We're so busy with customers, there's no time to do everything we're supposed to do with so little staff on the floor.
Me: It's insane. I can't even tell you what I've been doing. I mean....????
Mal: I feel like that every day- like I'm just spinning my wheels, and then I go home and collapse. But you know what I figured out?
Me: What?
Mal: It's just like the post office. Mail keeps coming in. Nothing you can do to stop it. Just go with it.

Probably a good philosophy. He's been doing this for a long time, so I take his word for it.

And other than a growing preoccupation with finding comfortable-- but not horribly hideous-- shoes, I officially hate Oprah and whatever Nu Spirituality phase she's in. Because every time she's on tv with whatever latest hack neo-woo-woo book she thinks is the shit, we get 900 people in there wanting to buy it, and they drive me and everyone else to the edge of reason if we for some reason do not have it in stock AT THAT VERY MOMENT. What, you couldn't get any closer to enlightenment with your bad-assed self any day before this very afternoon at 4pm?
Listen, I'm all for people adding more spirituality into their lives. God knows we need it ( HA! Get it? "God knows....." okay. I'm stretching, I know it.), but this pap she's pushing is stuff that's been packaged and resold and bought a million times over. As one of our cashiers said recently, "Eckhart Tolle can blow me". Amen, sister. Now there's this new book that, by assessing from the publisher's summary, looks to be in the Mitch Ablom/ Tuesdays With Morrie/Life-Was-Better-When-We-Were-In-Kindergarten genre called The Last Lecture. No, I'm not even going to link it here, because I'm that annoyed. I haven't even read the fucking book, and no, I'm not ashamed in judging it by its cover. For the record, I'm not wasting time to read it, either ( and neither are any of my coworkers) because I just don't give a rats ass, and I can pretty much guarantee it's going to suck away however many hours it takes to plod through it that I will never get back.

And yet it flies out the doors, so fast we can hardly keep it in stock. I put out 20 copies on Wed. I'll bet when I arrive for work tomorrow, they'll be history. Madness, I tell you. Madness.

*Sigh*. So that's the news that's the news. Breakup, no money. Yee haw.